Sports columnists Ben Frederickson and Jeff Gordon discuss the fourth-place Cardinals' struggles to secure a series sweep so far and why that needs to change against the lowly White Sox.Â
The Cardinals started their homestand off with an encouraging performance behind their ace Sonny Gray, but it ended with a whimper as a bullpen day on the mound went sideways thanks to a four-run seventh inning that broke-open a tie game.
The four-running inning came primarily at the expense of Cardinals reliever Giovanny Gallegos and led to a 5-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox in front of an announced 43,046 at Busch Stadium in the finale of their three-game series on Sunday afternoon.
The Cardinals fell to 15-19 after back-to-back losses.
The White Sox (8-27) entered the weekend with just one road win this season, but they took two of three from the Cardinals at Busch Stadium for their first series win since they swept the Tampa Bay Rays on April 26-28 in Chicago.
This season, the White Sox had won just one series and split one series in their 10 previous series entering the weekend.
The lone run for the Cardinals came on a solo home run by designated hitter Willson Contreras in the fourth inning. The Cardinals had just four hits in the game. Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn and Lars Nootbaar each had hits.
Winn snapped and 0-for-16 slump with his infield single, while Nootbaar snapped an 0-for-10 stretch with a single lined off the leg of White Sox starting pitcher Garrett Crochet in the third inning.
Liberatore gave the Cardinals a chance
Cardinals left-hander Matthew Liberatore made the spot start in place of injured left-hander Steven Matz, who went on the injured list with a lower back strain on Friday. Liberatore had pitched well out of the bullpen this season, and he compiled a 1-1 record with a 2.76 ERA in 12 relief appearances this season.
His longest previous out of this season came during the club’s most recent road trip when he pitched three innings of innings in relief in an extra-inning loss against the New York Mets at Citi Field on April 28.
On Sunday, Liberatore entered the day with a pitch count limit of approximately 50 pitches. He pitched 3 2/3 innings and struck out five. He allowed five hits and did not walk a batter.
The White Sox scored a run in the second inning after former Cardinal Paul DeJong lined a one-out double that hopped over the center field wall, advanced to third base on a wild pitch and scored on a sacrifice fly by White Sox rookie Bryan Ramos.
Liberatore logged four of his five strikeouts after the White Sox scored, including three in the third inning. He retired the first two batters of the fourth inning on grounders to the infield, and then he exited after having thrown exactly 50 pitches.
Leahy took the baton
Right-handed reliever Kyle Leahy had allowed two runs on two hits in his only other outing of the season, 1 1/3 innings against the Detroit Tigers on April 30. For his major-league career, he’d appeared in just four games and allowed six runs in three innings for an ERA of 18.00.
However, Leahy held the line in relief of Liberatore. Leahy turned in his best outing in the majors with 2 1/3 scoreless innings.
Leahy did not allow a hit or a walk, and he struck out two batters.
A former 17th-roudn draft pick in 2018, Leahy recorded his first strikeout in the fourth inning when he got DeJong to swing and miss at a sweeper to end the inning.
In the fifth, Leahy struck Martin Maldonado out on a sweeper to end a three-pitch at-bat.
Gallegos’ struggles cost the Cardinals
Contreras’ home run in the fourth inning tied the score 1-1, and it remained that way until the seventh inning when Gallegos entered the game for the Cardinals.
A workhorse of the bullpen at one time (186 appearances from 2021-23), Gallegos entered the day with an ERA of 9.00 this season in 12 games. He’d allowed nine runs in nine hits and four of the 11 hits he allowed were home runs.
With all hands on deck for the bullpen game on Sunday and Gallegos’ last outing having come in Detroit on April 30, there was no hiding the right-hander.
Gallegos got ahead of White Sox cleanup hitter Eloy Jimenez 0-2, but then threw a slider for a ball. He came back with a four-seam fastball on the next pitch, but the 91.3-mph pitch sailed in the upper third of the strike zone and over the outer half of the plate.
Jimenez mashed the pitch 411 feet for a solo home run to center field. That gave the White Sox the lead, and they did not relinquish the lead for the rest of the day.
Gavin Sheets followed with a double, and DeJong doubled to drive in Sheets and mark the end of Gallegos’ outing. Gallegos faced the minimum of three batters, gave up three extra-base hits and all three batters scored in the inning.
Left-hander John King took mound after Gallegos, and he gave up a pair of singles, including a one-out RBI single by Braden Shewmake. DeJong scored on Shewmake’s single to account for the third run charged to Gallegos. King gave up one run of his own in the inning on a sacrifice fly by Robbie Grossman.
Sports columnists Ben Frederickson and Jeff Gordon discuss the fourth-place Cardinals' struggles to secure a series sweep so far and why that …
ºüÀêÊÓƵ Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera (48) watches as Chicago White Sox Eloy Jiménez (74) finishes running the bases after hitting a home run off of ºüÀêÊÓƵ Cardinals relief pitcher Giovanny Gallegos (65) during the seventh inning of a game Sunday, May 5, 2024, at Busch Stadium in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Photo by Christine Tannous, ctannous@post-dispatch.com